Opera review: 'Middlemarch in Spring’ is a sunny romp

The last two words in the title of composer Allen Shearer's new opera "Middlemarch in Spring," which got an engaging world premiere from Composers, Inc. over the weekend, are aptly chosen. They signal that the piece is less an adaptation than a sort of spinoff from its source material, picking up just one narrative thread out of the intricate tapestry of George Eliot's novel, and they hint at the comparatively sunny nature of the results.

To be sure, Claudia Stevens' deftly streamlined libretto lays the expected tribulations on the head of her endearingly idealistic protagonist, Dorothea Brooke - an ill-judged marriage to the pompous elderly scholar Edward Casaubon, Casaubon's death and the humiliating terms of his will, and the demise of her utopian dreams for the re-engineering of society.

But she does find true love in the end. So there's that.

More tellingly, though, this two-act chamber work is such a light-hearted and buoyant creation that it's hard not to walk away feeling that all's right with the world. A final burst of philosophy by all the characters (including the resurrected Casaubon) only contributes to the sense that Dorothea's sister Celia may have been onto something when she said that being happy is an easy choice to make.

Shearer's score - tuneful, elegant and canny in its creation of musical character - furthers that notion. Working with striking concision, the composer helps us hear the inner nature of each of the characters, from Casaubon's granitic self-regard to Celia's charmingly bubbled-headed cheeriness.

Dorothea herself and Will Ladislaw, the impoverished young political consultant and journalist with whom she eventually find love, sound a little more like generic romantic leads in this telling. But Shearer compensates by giving both of them music of wonderful ardor and allure.

Friday's performance at San Francisco's Z Space, dexterously conducted by Jonathan Khuner and staged with compact inventiveness by director Philip Lowery, proved a fine showcase for the piece's virtues. A few well-chosen projections by Jeremy Knight provided verdant backdrops for the outdoor scenes and a glimpse - through the artwork of Blake and Goya - into the interior landscapes of some of the characters. (Goya's drawings in particular seemed a horrifyingly apt visual correlative for the emotions of a writer struggling against a deadline.)

The six-member cast, which included not a single weak link, gave Shearer's music the vividness it deserved. Soprano Sara Duchovnay sang with precision and expressive grace as Dorothea, yet at times she risked being overshadowed by Tonia D'Amelio's extravagantly charismatic and bright-toned performance as Celia.

Philip Skinner's Casaubon was a marvel of robust sound and imposing theatrical presence, and tenor Daniel Curran brought clarity and boyish wit to the role of Ladislaw. Eugene Brancoveanu as Sir James Chettam (Dorothea's original suitor, who settles for Celia's hand) and Michael Mendelsohn as the girls' guardian uncle each found ways of making their characters' respective blends of folly and good-heartedness sound appealing.

Joshua Kosman is The San Francisco Chronicle's music critic. E-mail: jkosman@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JoshuaKosman